1. Project Overview

The project is undertaken by Panzhihua Xingmao Company. In 2011, the world’s first SLon-4000 pulsating high-gradient high-intensity magnetic separator was officially put into operation, marking a landmark project for comprehensive utilization of vanadium-titanium magnetite tailings in Panxi area. The production line is equipped with 3 sets of SLon-4000 and 4 sets of SLon-2500 vertical ring pulsating high-gradient magnetic separators. Each unit boasts a processing capacity of 350 tons per hour with a rated excitation power of only 102 kW, delivering remarkable energy-saving performance. Taking total tailings from Midi Titanium Concentrator of Panzhihua Iron and Steel as raw material, the production line adopts a combined high-intensity magnetic separation-flotation process to recover fine-grained ilmenite and realize value recovery of waste vanadium-titanium resources.

2. Complete Separation Process Flow

Raw tailings first pass through a deslagging screen to remove large debris, followed by a drum permanent magnet separator to pre-remove strongly magnetic iron ore. Two SLon-4000 units perform the primary high-intensity roughing separation to discard most gangue and slime and produce crude titanium concentrate. The crude concentrate is sent to thickening tanks for dewatering and classification; the settled sand undergoes regrinding, then fed into two SLon-2500 units for secondary high-intensity cleaning separation to further enrich titanium minerals. The settled sand from cleaning is first floated to remove sulfide impurities, then purified via titanium flotation to obtain qualified titanium concentrate. All tailings from each magnetic separation stage and flotation overflow are combined and discharged collectively. The graded stepwise enrichment flow matches the separation characteristics of fine-grained ilmenite perfectly.

3. Project Application Results

The full production line operates stably for long-term service. The TiO₂ grade of final titanium concentrate steadily reaches 47.02%, complying with industrial sales standards. Benefiting from the large throughput and low energy consumption of SLon magnetic separators, the project produces an additional 270,000 tons of high-quality titanium concentrate annually and drastically cuts the loss of titanium resources in tailings. The project realizes tailings reduction and valuable metal recycling, establishing a circular economy model for vanadium-titanium solid waste. It fully verifies the technical superiority of large-scale SLon magnetic separators in recovering low-grade fine-grained titanium tailings, and provides a mature, replicable engineering demonstration for resource development of similar vanadium-titanium tailings across Panxi and the whole country.